Thursday, February 07, 2013

A look across the polling landscape on the Obama Administration’s increased reliance on drones suggests that support for the strikes is not only wide but also bipartisan.

A February 2012 Washington Post-ABC poll showed that eight in ten Americans (83 percent) approved of the Obama Administrations use of unmanned drones against suspected terrorists overseas — with a whopping 59 percent strongly approving of the practice. Support for the drone attacks was also remarkably bipartisan. Seventy six percent of Republicans and 58 percent of Democrats approved of the policy.

In that same poll, respondents were asked whether they supported using drones to target American citizens who are suspected terrorists, the question that stands at the heart of the recent flare-up in Congress over the practice. Two thirds of people in the survey said they approved of doing so.
It’s not just Post-ABC polling that suggests the use of drones is widely popular with the American public. A September 2011 Pew poll showed that 69 percent of people said that the increased use of drones was a good thing while just 19 percent said it was a bad thing.

The reason drone strikes are popular? Because they are perceived to be effective in reducing the threat of terrorism without endangering American lives. (Polling on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has, for several years now, suggested that a majority of the public believes neither was worth fighting almost certainly due to the losses of American lives.) In a September 2011 Post-ABC poll, three-quarters of the public said drone strikes against suspected terrorists in Yemen and Pakistan had been either ”very” or “somewhat” effective to reduce the threat of terrorism.

So, most people are more than willing for the US government to target anyone hey choose "over there" as long as American military personnel aren't in danger? That's obviously an immoral stance that most people probably don't actually hold. They're assuming that we're only killing "bad guys" --- and that we know who the bad guys are because it's incomprehensible that our leaders would target people who aren't bad. This is a powerful delusion that's fed daily by our political and media establishment's insistence that we are "exceptional" --- and by that we mean "good." I don't know how you get past the basic chauvinism implicit in that belief. It's very deeply held.

And yet we know that many of the so-called terrorists who were sent to Guantanamo weren't terrorists, despite the assurances by our leaders that they were "the worst of the worst." We know that they've killed numerous "number two" Al Qaeda leaders. In fact, we know they've lied again and again. So I think the only way to persuade Americans is to use the utilitarian argument, namely that killing people in far off lands from a distance with flying robots is only saving the lives of American military personnel (and Americans in general) in the very short run. The blowback from this frightening and unaccountable warmaking is likely to be very strong.

This technology is turning all the usual "just war" theorizing on its head and it needs to be thoroughly debated, out in the open. I understand it's almost beyond temptation for boys not to use their toys as soon as they get them, but this one's potentially as important as the development of the atomic bomb for the way it's changing our conception of warfare. And not in a good way. I can only imagine the hatred it's engendering. Lord knows, we've seen that movie before.

LEVIN: Well, you've read opinions as to whether or not waterboarding is torture. And I'm just asking, do you accept those opinions of the attorney general? That's my question.

BRENNAN: Senator, I've read a lot of legal opinions. I read an Office of Legal Counsel opinion from the previous administration that said waterboarding could be used. So from the standpoint of that, I can't point to a single legal document on the issue. But as far as I'm concerned, waterboarding is something that never should have been employed, and as far as I'm concerned, never will be if I have anything to do with it.

LEVIN: Is waterboarding banned by the Geneva Conventions?

BRENNAN: I believe the attorney general also has said it's contrary and in contravention of the Geneva Convention. Again, I'm not a lawyer or a legal scholar to make the determination as to what's in violation of an international convention.

I'm sure Brennan will be absolved of all sin for making such a difficult personal judgement. But if he cannot take a position on the legality of torture then it's quite clear that he knows it wasn't legal. Why do they all do this ridiculous dance? To protect US Government officials from war crimes charges. Even the president uses the strange circumlocution "the US doesn't torture."